Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Philosophers Index AbstractThe paper questions terms current in neo-traditionalist' metaphysics. Plato's Socrates posited Forms' because he ignored diverse origins of knowledge. Nevertheless, the Forms' are developed to show why they dismember themselves. In contrast, neotraditionalism proceeds as if metaphysical language was sound and plain. The paper shows the twists of meaning within "quality, characteristic, property, and resemblance". To replace "universal by resemblance", is to treat "resemblance" as a universal. But the sense of the whole cluster - "resemblance, semblance, quality, characteristic, property and universal" - can be revised by attention to etymology, phenomenology and actual use.